


Livid

by deathwailart



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Family Issues, Fights, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 05:07:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2054763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She and her father have never seen eye to eye.</p>
<p>Written for the 30 day drabble challenge: livid</p>
            </blockquote>





	Livid

"I forbid it!"  
  
Her father is a big man with a voice that booms like thunder even though the past few years have seen Ríoghnach shoot up too, broad shoulders and muscled arms from the two-handed weapons she's come to favour. She tried swords and shields but that isn't her, hanging back instead of charging in because in her opinion, the best defence is a good offense.  
  
Besides, the sword and shield was for when she thought she would finally have a path to follow instead of this dirt road they keep stumbling off in favour of tramping through the undergrowth that snags and snares and trips them up.  
  
"I didn't choose to live this life!" She snaps back, pushing away from the table so he's not just as tall as mother, Carver and Bethany all look on with horrified eyes because as sure as the sun rises and sets, Ríoghnach has one thing in common with her father and that's the shared personality, strict, high – almost impossibly high – expectations, aggressive and direct. It likely served him well during his life on the run but Ríoghnach chafes under it, this 'life' that almost seems a cruel joke whenever she can convince her mother to talk about Kirkwall more and the life she had when she was still an Amell.  
  
"You would join the Templars?" Father continues, shrugging off Leandra's hand when she says his name quietly and curls one soft hand around his arm.  
  
"You want to join the Templars?" Bethany echoes, her voice quietly horrified and already the tears come. Ríoghnach rolls her eyes because Bethany just needs to make her bottom lip tremble and suddenly the whole world rushes to wipe away the first tear before it even falls.  
  
"I want the sort of life it can offer – Templars have Mage family members, it'd be more money on the table than having to scrape by with whatever you get us both into." He opens his mouth and she slams a hand down flat on the table, the shock of it jangling all the way up through her elbow to her shoulder. "Don't you try to say that's more honest. Templars only kill when they have to and I know what you do, what you've done in the past, you're no better than a common cutthroat."  
  
"Ríoghnach!" It's her mother this time, looking utterly appalled. "Leave the table and go to your room."  
  
"I'm not a child."  
  
"Under this roof you will do as we say."  
  
Defeat tastes bitter on her tongue when she stalks off, slamming the door and bolting it behind her even though she has to share the room with Bethany now that she and Carver are apparently too old to share. Princess Bethany who gets the world while she and Carver are expected to just shoulder everything and to take what's left in the end. Picking up their lives whenever it gets too risky. Barely any time to get to know father because he has to spend all his time teaching Bethany when he's not working.  
  
Leaving the door locked she sneaks out the window, leaving it open just enough so she'll be able to get back in and heads for the tavern with money she really should put aside because even her coin from her jobs isn't hers, it has to go towards the family and she's lucky if she even gets a piece of it. She buys their best ale, buys herself dinner because she didn't finish hers thanks to the argument, buys a drink for the Templar recruit who joins her.  
  
She comes back the next morning when mother is making the thick lumpy porridge they all have to have because it lasts, probably because it's so disgusting no one really wants to eat much of it. Comes in through the window and changes into her armour, grabbing her pack and her sword because she's got a job she needs to be heading off to. The door still locked so Bethany clearly slept elsewhere. She doesn't say goodbye, ignores her father when he shouts her name when all she wants to do is rub it in his face but she still has to live with him whenever she comes back.


End file.
